Lawyer Lumatete to oversee Jubilee Party nominations

March 19, 2017 6:33 pm

Head of the Jubilee Party Secretariat Raphael Tuju says they decision was crucial to ensure the exercise in not marred by doubts from aspirants/FILE

By JOSEPH MURAYA, NAIROBI, Kenya, Mar 19 – The Jubilee Party has appointed Muchai Lumatete as the Chairman of the National Elections Board, which will oversee the forthcoming nominations in April.

This is after the earlier chairperson Pwoka Wanyonyi was disqualified for having pending issues with the Law Society of Kenya.

Head of the Jubilee Party Secretariat Raphael Tuju says they decision was crucial to ensure the exercise in not marred by doubts from aspirants.

“It was unfortunate that we were not able to continue with Wanyonyi as our chairman. We do understand that the issue of the nominations of our party are so important that we don’t want to be diverted by sideshows,” he stated.

Lumatete, a practicing lawyer for more than 30 years, has expressed optimism that he is going to deliver a free and fair nomination exercise for all the Jubilee Party aspirants.

“Elections don’t start on the day of casting the vote…the most important part of an election is the nomination of candidates by parties and they must ensure nothing goes wrong during that period,” he said.

He said with an above board nominations exercise, the party will be set to clinch more seats across all parts of the country.

He said already a team of party regional coordinators was in place and was set to start recruiting County election board members.

The county board will oversee the exercise at the constituency and ward level.

According to Tuju, the County board will not oversee the exercise in their area to ensure it is free, fair and transparent.